Dear Friends of the Unreal —
As NaNoWriMo founder Chris Baty warns in his book, week #2 is tough. For those of us who have trouble with plot, week #2 feels plodding, and uncomfortable, and at this point just a tad strange.
This morning I found myself haunted by books I’ve loved and characters I admire. By stories I wish I’d told myself, and by ideas I had in rough drafts of other stories but that I’ve had to abandon. The return of the repressed — so touted by Sigmund Freud — seemed to be occurring.
What to do?
Allow it. See where it goes.
I figured that in this morass of zombies something alive must lurk. And just as I decided this, a dead writer appeared on the doorstep of the project.
I’ve let him in, hoping — to paraphrase the Swedish horror movie — that he’s the right one.
Keep your fingers crossed.
Then uncross them, and continue writing.
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Published by Stephanie Barbé Hammer
Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a magical realist prose fiction writer, novelist, occasional essayist, and a committed, intermittent poet, as well as a passionate instructor of writing. A 7-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize she has published work in Hayden's Ferry, Pearl, CRATE, Rhapsoidia, NYCBigCityLit, the East Jasmine Review, Apeiron, Inlandia, Literary Alchemy and the Bellevue Literary Review among other places. She is the author the fabulist novel THE PUPPET TURNERS OF NARROW INTERIOR (Urban Farmhouse Press), a novelette, RESCUE PLAN (Bamboo Dart Press), a prose poem chapbook collection, SEX WITH BUILDINGS (dancing girl press), and a poetry collection, HOW FORMAL (Spout Hill Press).
Stephanie's new novel PRETEND PLUMBER is available for order from your favorite bookstore, and her poetry chapbook CITY SLICKER appeared in July 2022. Stay tuned for her novella, JOURNEY TO MERVEILLEUX CITY, coming out in 2023!
View all posts by Stephanie Barbé Hammer
Stephanie Barbé Hammer Writing (Un) Real 
Fingers crossed. And when you’re done with the dead writer can you send him over to my house?
Ha! Deal. Thanks for commenting.
After Joe is done with that dead writer, who may or may not be spending time with him even now, could y’all send him my way? Keep writing. x0 N2
I’ll pack him up (on ice) and send him directly. Merci! 🙂